by Mike Resnick
“In 1965,” said Omar. “But his government fell in 1967.”
“But then he came back again, didn’t he?”
“He was elected in 1986,” answered Omar. “And he was thrown out a second time three years later.”
“Then my question is simply this: Since there’s still a bloodline tracing to the Mahdi, and since one of them was popular enough to be elected not once but twice, why don’t the Mahdists support one of the Mahdi’s descendants to run the country? Why waste all this effort trying to find the Amulet?”
“Sadiq al Mahdi was elected twice because of his bloodline, and he was removed twice because of his performance in office,” answered Omar. “This served to show the Mahdists that merely having the blood of the original Mahdi is not enough. Their hoped-for leader must have the power as well, and that power resides in the Amulet.”
“If they should find it before we do, will they give it to a descendant of the Mahdi?” she asked.
“Whoever possesses it will be the Mahdi,” explained Omar. “The grandson and others took it as a family name, but the original Mahdi was actually named Muhammad Ahmad. The word Mahdi actually means the Expected One; in your culture, it would be the equivalent of the Messiah.”
“I see,” said Lara. “So the Mahdists really have no ties to the current Mahdi clan?”
“No,” answered Omar. “In fact, should the Mahdists come into possession of the Amulet, I think they will probably slaughter all who bear the name as heretics, just as they will kill those of us who do not accept the possessor as the true Mahdi.”
“Then shouldn’t those who carry the Mahdi’s blood be willing to help us?” she asked.
“The descendants of Muhammad Ahmad believe authority over the people and affairs of the Sudan should be theirs by right of birth. They oppose the Mahdists because of the Amulet, but they oppose us because we do not agree that their blood gives them the right to rule us.” Omar smiled. “In this case,” he concluded, “the enemy of my enemy is not my friend.”
“Exactly how many Mahdists are there?”
“Who knows? A hundred thousand, a million, five million. They are spread across all of North Africa, and as far away as Istanbul. Wherever people await the Expected One, there are Mahdists.”
“And how many of your anti-Mahdists are there?”
“There are anti-Mahdists, those who do not want the Amulet found, but we do not call ourselves anti-Mahdists,” said Omar. “In fact, we do not call ourselves anything at all. We number a few thousand at most. We coalesced when we learned of Colonel Stewart’s visit to the Temple of Horus. There simply wasn’t anything to do before that, because no one knew where the Amulet was. Once we knew it still existed, it became our holy mission to find and destroy it.”
“There was nothing in the Temple,” said Lara.
“But the Mahdists don’t know that.”
“That fact has been forcibly impressed upon me,” she said grimly.
“And that is why we must now find it, rather than simply stopping anyone else from finding it,” continued Omar. “Otherwise they will kill you, and your friend Kevin Mason.” He paused. “If we have any advantage at all, it is that they will soon conclude that you did not find the Amulet, and I think they will then be content to wait while you and Mason search for it in the Sudan. After all, why should they kill the two people who are most likely to find that which they so greatly desire?”
“I thought I was in big trouble when I was buried in that tomb,” said Lara. She grimaced, remembering her confrontation with the hideous god Set. “Now I think that Fate was just giving me a chance to rest before really putting me through the wringer.”
They continued riding through the night, Lara asking Omar an occasional question about the Sudan, Gaafar and Hassam constantly scanning the darkness for enemies.
Finally they came to the shore of Lake Nasser. Lara climbed off El Khobar and filled her canteen.
“Impressive, isn’t it?” she said, straightening up and looking out across the lake.
“It is the largest man-made lake in the world, created when they built the High Dam,” said Omar, “but it is the water of the Nile all the same. There is nothing to compare to it.”
“There is one lake,” replied Lara. “Lake Kariba in Zimbabwe, made when they built a dam across the Zambezi.”
“I have never been there, but I have seen maps. It is nowhere as large as Lake Nasser.”
“No,” she agreed, “but it’s much deeper. In fact, the weight of the water caused the floor of the lake to collapse. It’s known as the lake that put a dent in the Earth.”
“The Zambezi is not the Nile,” said Omar, convinced that if they were having an argument he had just won it.
Gaafar walked up to them. “We’d better start riding,” he said. “We must find a boat before sunrise.”
Omar nodded, and a moment later they were going south along the lakeshore. In three miles they came to a small village, and silently lifted a felluca and carried it to the water.
“We will tether the camels and leave them here as payment,” said Omar.
“Won’t the villagers scream to the authorities?”
Omar smiled. “Five camels are worth an entire fleet of fellucas. They will consider themselves blessed by Allah, and they will tell no one, for fear that the government will confiscate some of the camels in lieu of taxes.”
Gaafar and Hassam finished their work and moved the saddles, saddle pads, rifle sheaths, and all the other equipment the camels had been carrying into the felluca. Then Omar tethered the camels’ forelegs, he, Lara and Hassam got into the felluca, and Gaafar, the largest and strongest of them, pushed the boat away from shore and jumped in.
“Good-bye, El Khobar,” said Lara softly, looking back at the camels. “You’ll be a lot safer without me.”
El Khobar turned his head briefly at the sound of her voice and snorted once, as if in total agreement.
12
After Gaafar and Hassam had rowed against the current for an hour a wind came up, and Omar quickly attached the sail to the small mast of the felluca. Their speed picked up considerably, and each of the men took a drink from their canteens.
“At least we won’t have to worry about water for the rest of the trip,” said Omar.
“It’s a comforting thought,” agreed Lara. “I do have a question, though: What are we going to do for food?”
“There are fishing poles and nets on the bottom of the boat. We’ll catch some fish along the way.”
“Good thing I like sushi,” said Lara.
Suddenly there was a ripple in the water, and Lara pointed it out. “What is that?” she asked. “It seems big for a fish.”
Omar shrugged. “The Nile is a big river. It grows big fish.”
“What about crocs?”
“Crocs?”
“Crocodiles. Are there any around here?”
“No,” answered Omar. “The last of them was killed a very long time ago.”
“That’s strange,” commented Lara. “I’ve seen huge crocs—some as long as eighteen feet—in Lake Turkana in the north of Kenya, and in Lake Tanganyika, and everyone refers to the species as Nile Crocodiles.”
“Once there were tens of thousands of them here,” answered Omar. “Half were killed because they were a menace to the villagers who lived on the Nile, and the other half were killed to make shoes for the delicate feet of European gentlemen and ladies.”
“I am told they are still in that section of the Nile that runs through Uganda to Lake Victoria,” said Gaafar.
“Yes, they are,” affirmed Lara. “I’ve seen them there.”
“You are quite a traveler, Lara Croft,” remarked Omar.
“I get around.”
“An understatement,” said Omar with a smile.
“Perhaps.” She looked across the lake. “How about hippos?” she asked. “Are they all gone, too?”
“They say a few remain, but I have never seen one,” said O
mar. “Once they were as plentiful in the Nile as crocodiles. They were called River Horses, though no one ever put a saddle or a bridle on one.”
“I always wondered why they were given that name,” said Lara. “They should have been River Pigs. They’re far more closely related.”
“They are awesome and noble beasts,” explained Hassam. “The horse is noble, whereas the pig is unclean.”
“You told me why the Egyptians and Sudanese killed off the Nile crocs, and it makes sense,” said Lara. “But if you think of the hippos as noble, awesome, horselike creatures, why kill them off, too?”
“We didn’t,” answered Gaafar.
“Surely you’re not suggesting European hunters killed all your hippos?”
“No, it was the climate,” said Omar. “Once, centuries ago, Northern Africa was a mild and temperate land, with heavy rainfall and thick vegetation. Over time it turned into desert, until it appears the way you see it now, with ninety-five percent of the Egyptian and Sudanese populations living along the Nile, the only source of life in this arid land.” He paused. “The hippopotamus spends his days in the water, because the water protects his sensitive skin from the rays of the sun. But he does not eat in the water. Each night he climbs ashore and forages inland, eating up to three hundred pounds of vegetation before returning to the water.” He waved a hand toward the shore. “Look around you. Nothing grows two miles inland. Even with irrigation ditches, five miles from the Nile—or what used to be the Nile before they created Lake Nasser—all you will find is desert. With all the vegetation gone, it was only a matter of time—a very short time—before the hippos were gone, too. Some starved, some moved south . . . but none remained.”
“Perhaps whoever discovers the Amulet of Mareish can turn the land green again,” suggested Hassam.
“More likely, he will turn it red—with blood,” replied Gaafar.
“What does the Amulet look like?” asked Lara. “If I’m to hunt for it, I have to know what I’m looking for.”
“It is so big,” said Omar, juxtaposing his thumbs and forefingers in a circle about three inches in diameter. “We know that it is made of bronze, and on it are engraved a scimitar, a dagger, and a representation of the sun—though no one is exactly sure of what it looks like. These words are the Mahdi’s description of it, written in his own hand in his private diaries. It hung from his neck on a silver chain, but we have no idea if the chain is still attached.”
“Are there any drawings of it?” she asked.
“There are many,” answered Omar. “But all are drawn from descriptions of it. None are from life. No artist has ever actually seen the Amulet.”
“Did General Gordon ever mention it?”
“Not to my knowledge,” said Omar. “But he wrote a large number of monographs and letters, so it is possible that he mentioned or even described it and we simply have not discovered that writing yet.”
“It’s not going to be an easy task,” said Lara. “You’ve got an Amulet that no living person has ever seen, that no one in the past has ever photographed or accurately drawn. It may be attached to a silver chain that is also not described, or it may not be. And it’s probably hidden in a country that is larger than England and France put together with most of Spain tossed in for good measure. And some of the Mahdists will be out to kill me before I find it, and some will be trying to take it from me the moment I do.” She paused. “You sure know how to make a girl feel wanted.”
“You will have Kevin Mason’s help,” said Omar.
“Let’s be honest,” she replied. “You never even heard of him. The only reason you think he’ll be a help is because I told you that this is his field of expertise.”
“Why would you lie to us?” asked Hassam. “We are all that stands between you and the Mahdists.”
“You are just the most comforting, reassuring bunch of guys I’ve ever met,” said Lara.
“We are?” he replied, brightening noticeably.
She sighed and decided not to explain the notion of sarcasm to him.
At noon the next day they reached the Great Temple of Ramses II at Abu Simbel, with its four sixty-five-foot-tall statues of the seated Pharaoh. Everything the ancient Egyptians had built was on a giant scale, and except for the pyramids, the Great Temple was the most gigantic and impressive of all, made even more so by the knowledge that UNESCO engineers had disassembled and moved the entire structure, as well as the nearby Temple of Hathor, the almost-as-impressive monument to Ramses’ consort, Queen Nefertari, from its original site, now submerged beneath the Nile.
There were the usual few hundred tourists milling about, and Lara assumed another hundred were inside the Great Temple with their local guides. She felt very exposed, because there were no other boats of any kind in the vicinity. Tourist ships never went south of the High Dam; any groups that wanted to visit were flown in from Aswan.
“Do you see anything suspicious?” she asked, staring intently at the shore.
“It looks normal to me,” said Omar.
“But I was told there would be Mahdists waiting at Abu Simbel,” she continued.
“There probably are,” agreed Omar. “But they’re waiting for three men and a woman approaching the Great Temple on camels. They are not looking for four male fishermen floating leisurely past in a felluca.”
“I hope you’re right,” said Lara, “but . . .”
“But what?”
“But I think you’re making them out to be a lot dumber than they probably are.”
“Look at the people on shore,” said Hassam. “They are paying no attention to us.”
“If I was going to shoot four people in a boat from the shore, I wouldn’t do it in front of a hundred tourists,” said Lara. “I’d do it from the top of one of the temples, or from behind one of those parked vans.”
“We are drifting farther and farther past the temples,” said Gaafar. “I think if they were going to shoot, they’d have fired already.”
“Then where are they?” said Lara.
“Maybe they are not here after all,” suggested Hassam.
She shook her head. “Your information has been accurate so far. Why should it be wrong this time? The Mahdists have to have known for more than a day that we didn’t die at the oasis.”
“I have no answers,” said Omar. “I am just grateful that our information was wrong. In another three or four minutes we will be out of rifle range and then there will be no question that they were not waiting for us.”
“Just keep your eyes open,” she said, scanning the shore.
But nothing happened for the next five minutes, and finally even Lara began to relax.
“It’s very puzzling,” she said. “No plane lands between Aswan and Abu Simbel. I doubt that there are even any landing strips for private planes. The train won’t run from Cairo to Khartoum for at least another week. They have to know that we’re still alive, and they know the only two routes to Khartoum will take us past Abu Simbel, one by land, one by water. So why weren’t they waiting for us?”
“They didn’t want to shoot us in front of witnesses,” said Gaafar.
She shook her head. “I’m not buying that for a minute.”
“Why not?”
“Let’s say three bearded men who are mostly covered by the same robes everyone else around here wears shoot four people in a boat and drive off ten seconds later. How many tourists will even notice what happened, let alone be able to identify them? The police or the army won’t get very far searching for three bearded men in the south of Egypt.”
“Then why do you think they let us pass?” asked Gaafar.
“Maybe they have decided that Lara Croft is their best chance of finding the Amulet, and that killing her would be, as the British say, counterproductive,” said Omar.
“They just tried to kill us the night before last,” replied Lara. “Not that much has changed.”
“You are a very suspicious woman,” said Gaafar.
�
��I’m also alive,” said Lara. “The two go hand-in-hand.”
As she spoke, she saw a ripple in the water, larger than the one she had remarked upon the day before. She stared curiously at it, and then saw three more a few yards away. And a moment later she saw something else.
“There are no more River Horses in these parts, right?” she said.
“That is right,” answered Omar.
“That’s what I thought.”
Suddenly she drew her Black Demons and in less than two seconds had fired twenty quick shots into the water, which soon turned red with blood. Four bodies, each wearing a wet suit, an aqualung, and with a trident gun slung over one shoulder, slowly floated to the surface.
“All praises to Wilkes and Hawkins,” she said. “Who else could give me .32 caliber bullets that go straight and true through five feet of water?”
“Who are they?” asked Hassam, staring at the bodies.
“River Rats,” said Lara, holstering her weapons. “A suddenly-extinct species.”
“But why . . . ?” began Omar.
“They weren’t afraid of witnesses,” said Lara. “They were afraid that they might miss us and alert us to their presence. These four were going to fire at point-blank range.” She stared back at the Great Temple, which was still barely visible. “Take us out farther from shore,” she said. “They can’t have seen what happened. If we move far enough out so they can’t spot us, they may think we’re dead, and that perhaps we killed their assassins as well. That might buy us some time.”
Omar adjusted the sail and the boat’s bow turned slightly to the left, moving them farther and farther away from the shoreline.
“How did you know?” he asked. “They could have been marine biologists. Scientists are always studying the Nile. They wouldn’t be the first to show up here.”
“I saw one of the tridents,” answered Lara. “The only things requiring that big a weapon are crocs and hippos—and men. And you yourself told me that there weren’t any hippos or crocs left in these waters.”
“So I did,” said Omar, surprised.